Are there any collectors of Official Guides here? I know several of you have them, as you reference them from time to time, usually on historic passenger train questions.
Yesterday I received 3 thru the mail that I purchased thru Ebay. Got a pretty good deal on them, all three for $20, including shipping. Dates are Dec, 1946; Aug 1955; and April 1969. All are in very good shape.
I really enjoy having OG. They are great reference tools and are fascinating to look at to realize what this country had as far as public transportation at one time, via the rails.
My current collection is 29, dating from January, 1941 to April/May 1996. My goal is to collect one from each decade back as far as possible…dont know how far I can go.
One day at the Northwestern an unhappy public relations guy took me to the PR departments storage room under the platform in the station. My Guides from before WWII have very brittle paper and are difficult to handle. The Guides before WWI are so fragile I have not opened one in years. The reprints available on CDs are a very good idea if you want to dig out information.
I have 3 Official Guides. One from 1970, one from April 1963 (the month I was born), and one from 1990.
The 1990 one was given to me by a friend who was a railroad clerk. The other two I purchased from a railroad memorabilia dealer.
The first guide I ever received was the 1970 issue. I’m a big RI fan and by coincidence, that guide just happened to come out of a RI depot.
Jeff
I started with 1968, 1970 & 1972 but have since been able to add (through a friend who watches out for these things for me) a 1954, 1956, 1944 & 1937 OGR (I don’t recall the months and I’m just too lazy at the moment to cross the room and check). The '44 is getting a little fragile and I only open the '37 if necessary. My friend has a 1918 Guide but can’t bear to handle it, as some pieces if paper ar always falling away. I’m hoping to add a 1929 (last year before the Depression), something from the years immediatly after WW1, a 1906-07 (the time the C&NW finished a lot of branches in my neck of the woods) and 1884-5 (the year they started).
I have more than 150 Guides, the oldest from June, 1911.
My greatest find was in 1980, when I was driving down a road behind BN’s headquarters in St. Paul and saw the top pages of one flapping in the breeze in a dumpster. Needless, to say, I stopped and emptied the dumpster.
You did hit the jack pot. Sometimes you are in the right place at the right time. What years were the ones you got?
Kevin…I would suggest you go to Ebay and type in Official Guide of the Railways. There are always OG’s for sale…and quite a few CD’s from various years. I have thought the CD’s are a bit overpriced, but then again, I didnt go in and scan everything!
Both of my 1940’s are in really good shape, but I am going to limit my use of them to preserve them.
For anyone who is interested in current railroad’s heritage (BNSF - (BN(CBQ, NP, GN, SPS)) ATSF) etc. I would strongly recommend the purchase of OG’s. The guides from the 70’s are really cheap and while they dont have much as far as passenger trains, the maps are excellent.
My library collection holds about 15 ORG dating from the early 1900’s (reprints) and actuall issues from 1926 to April 1971. They are a better investment than timetables.
I enjoy mine, the oldest original is from 1926, which a previous owner bound-a good move, since they tend to disintigrate, having been printed on newsprint stock. I have August,1951, which is as close as I can get to my month of birth, September,1951(Geez, I’m a geezer by the standards of most bloggers,here). My favorite would be April, 1971 (final privately run passenger trains prior to Amtrak), or perhaps March,1956, because it has the debut hype for the mid-50s lightweights. The comments on them were written before anyone rode in them, apparently!
At this point I have over 500 issues. Thats right, 500 issues - about 750,000 pages. Crazy? Maybe. But I enjoy them.
My interest and passion has always been the passenger train. When I started getting into trains in high school in the 1970’s I would read references about the Guide in Trains magazine. Finally, I got one issue - November 1960. For someone who started training in the Amtrak era the Guide was nirvana. All those passenger trains! Shortly thereafter I started attending railroadiana shows and started picking up more issues. Also, I would respond to ads in Trains magazine for issues for sale. I dealt with one dealer, Arnold Joseph, who had a railroadiana store near Pennsylvania Station in New York. I bought a number of older issues from him, via mail or through personal visits. Also, in the late 1970’s, there was a store in New York called the Broadway Limited Antique Company, that was located in the same building where the Official Guide was produced for many years. They had dozens of issues for sale. Unfortunately, being a college kid at the time I had to pick and choose issues carefully, getting the most for my money. Later, when John Martin bought out the entire back inventory of Guides from the publisher, I dealt with him at a number of railroadiana shows.
For the last few years I have been using Ebay extensively for purchasing Guides. Sometimes I get a bargain and sometimes not. I also keep an eye out for bound volumes and volumes in binders. Two of my prized binders include one that was used on the C&EI/L&N Hummingbird, in mint condition, and another one that has an “Oregon-Washington Limited” (a train that was two generations removed from the City of Portland) imprint on the cover.
What do I do with all of these issues? I liken an issue to a “snapshot” of passenger train service at a specific time. Looking through a number of issues you begin to see trend
Well, I guess my 29 issue collection pales in the shadow of yours. What a collection. Do you still collect thru Ebay? There seems to be quite a few for sale.
Generally speaking what do you pay, or perhaps better phrased, what is the value of good conditioned OG’s in the 30’s and 20’s?
I agree that the current publisher is not helpful. I would like a current issue (within a couple of years) for current referencing. I called and wanted to purchase a current issue, but was told only full year subscriptions are available.
Ebay is my primary source for Official Guides, although I try to hit the larger railroadiana shows when I can. When you look in Ebay, check out the issues that are listed in the “buy it now” section - there are a number of them for sale. Also, look in www.abebooks.com and www.alibris.com. These sites show the offerings of thousands of independent book dealers from around the world. The prices for Guides in these sites tend to be on the high side but sometimes there are resonable bargains to be had.
As for prices, lets just say in my 30 years of collecting I have paid as low as $5 to a high of $150 for issues from the 20’s and 30’s. Part of the fun of the hunt is to find issues that are the in decent or usable condition for the lowest price.
As for the most recent issues, again your best bet would be Ebay and the railroadiana shows. Newer issues occasionally do show up.
Good Luck in your search. Official Guides need good homes!
I have one - got it from my aunt when she worked for a wholesale lumber company that shipped by rail. It was an old-timer at the time - 1957 (forget the month, but the O&W is in it). The pages are quite brittle, and it’s not done well in the routine handling department, but it does provide me with that snapshot of how things were, and a guide to old rail lines.
I have a question. I have a few guides and they are in the condition that many of yours are. I know that bigger libraries have programs that treat the more valuable parts of their collectionsfor preservation, basically nuturalizing the acid that is in commercialy produced papers… Does anyone know of any details of where or who might do that for individuals? There was a company here in NC that was experimenting with it several years ago, but they are gone the last I heard.